Persona 4: Drabbles
by We Stole Vodka From The Optic
Summary: Done for Livejournal prompts. Persona 4 Drabbles. Updated Daily. 100/100. COMPLETE!
1. Shadow

**Done for Livejournal prompts. :D Hope you like them and feedback is appreciated!**

Persona 4: Drabbles

Drabble 1: Shadow

Souji had a Shadow. Yes. He did.

The difference? Between him and everyone else? Souji ignored his Shadow. He didn't deny the little whispers, the tiny, petty jabs about him. He half-accepted them, half-rejected them. But now, when the case was over and done with, when the Investigation Team and him separated, Souji finds himself wanting to know more.

His hand dips into the screen of the TV. It's warm, watery… comforting and unreal. His parents are gone. And they wouldn't care if Souji just up and disappeared. They'd think he ran away. Souji scowls, his eyebrows, the color of silver stitch together in slight anger. Souji jumps, dives into the TV and everything dissolves in a swirl of black and white.

So Souji isn't surprised when he finds himself standing in a place reminiscent of the city.

Standing before a man with Souji's face and clothes.

"Good afternoon, Souji Seta." The Shadow says, smiling in a twisted, cruel fashion.


	2. Dream

Persona 4: Drabbles

Drabble 2: Dream

Namatame walks through the fog in a hunched, defeated way.

Where was Mayumi? Where was his family? Was anyone out there?

No. He was alone, like he should be. Like he deserved to be. Namatame looks through the fog with hollow, tired eyes. The gray hugs him from all sides, caresses him. A voice, soft and beautiful beckons him closer. Namatame's mouth drops. The voice is Mayumi's! Mayumi's!

"Taro…" The voice becomes dark. "Help… me…"

Namatame falls to his knees, in a hunched, defeated way.

In the fog, there hung Mayumi, from a noose made of cloth.

**Feedback is appreciated~!**


	3. Artist

Persona 4: Drabbles

Drabble 3: Artist

The world around him is black and red.

The colors merge together in perfect lines. Yellows, grays, blacks and reds. And in the middle, there stood the artist of life. Tohru Adachi. He holds his 'brush' in one hand. His 'brush' is cold and gray, loaded with 'paint' and black emotion.

He runs a hand through his hair, his eyes narrowing in amusement. He painted a picture of life, of death, of chaos, of order. And… apparently, some people aren't enthralled with the picture he's painted. They want to destroy the chaos, the life, the death… the order.

Well…

Adachi won't let them.

"I've taken a life before! And I can do it again!"


	4. Fragile

Persona 4: Drabbles

Drabble 4: Fragile

Kanji scowls when the needle in his hand breaks.

He groans and pulls another one from a box of needles. He winces when his finger brushes the point, and verbally expresses his discontent.

"Dammit! Frickin' pricks."

Kanji smiles when he thinks of one detective. Naoto Shirogane.

Strangely, Naoto was like a needle. She can break, snap easily when faced with things she doesn't want to hear. She's pointy and sharp, and can pack a powerful punch. She's able to sew plans and deductions.

The difference?

Naoto wasn't fragile. And she didn't need Kanji to come save her.

The other needle in Kanji's hand breaks.


	5. Persona

Persona 4: Drabbles

Drabble 5: Persona

Yosuke watches the Shadows come out of Konishi Liquor Store with a scared expression. He falls, and stays there. Souji stands, defiantly, his eyes wide with shock. There's a card in his hand, Yosuke notices. Souji notices as well, and flips over the card. He looks confused though, but the pupils in his eyes become large.

A word, whispered softly and confusedly, breaks the Shadow's charge,

"PER-SO-NA!"

Now, it's the Shadows that are looking on in fear.


	6. Red

Persona 4: Drabbles

Drabble 6: Red

Yukiko brushes her hair, attempting to overcome the tangled knot that placed itself in her long, flowing hair. Chie giggles, as Yukiko snatches a comb from the vanity and runs it straight through the knot.

The comb was red, as Yukiko would remember.

Chie stops giggling, cocks her head to the side and says, smiling,

"Hey Yukiko… you look good in red."

Chie doesn't notice Yukiko's blush.

From that day forward, Yukiko always put a red headband in her hair, and wore a red sweater.

Now, listening to her Shadow talk, herself talk, Yukiko barely resists a smile when the Shadow repeats those words.


	7. Gun

Persona 4: Drabbles

Drabble 7: Gun

Naoto looks down the barrel of the gun.

The Shadow, a mechanical monstrosity, looks up. In a split-second, the gun shoots, and the Shadow flies back. Dead.

Naoto loads the gun again.

How she hated that sound. Bang. Bang. The sound of death, as she'd called it.

So, in the end, when they're facing Adachi, Naoto wonders how he can swing his gun around so carelessly, so arrogantly.

Bang.

Bang.

Naoto hated that sound.

The sound of Death.


	8. Sleep

Persona 4: Drabbles

Drabble 8: Sleep

Nanako looks like she's sleeping. But Souji knows better.

Nanako is dead. Namatame is dead. There was no gain, no glory from their deaths. In the end, there was nothing. The air in the hospital room hangs heavy with despair. Chie is sobbing, Kanji is fighting back his tears, Naoto has lost her control over her emotions, Yosuke is frozen with shock, Yukiko is right next to Chie, choking on her own sobs, Rise is leaning against him, comforting him and Teddie is gone.

Souji slaps Rise's hand away and she jumps back. Everyone is staring at him, now.

Souji walks out of that room, and in the hall, he breaks down.

The tears slide down his cheeks so easily, so silently.

There was no vengeance. No retribution.


	9. Sky

Persona 4: Drabbles

Drabble 9: Sky

Adachi can't see the sky.

Gray fog hugs the world around him, hugs him, hugs the buildings, hugs the sky.

Regret runs through his body, an unwanted and unneeded emotion. Did he really cause this? Cause so much death? So much destruction?

No. He was making a New World, wasn't he? A world where no one pretended they didn't see anything, where no one hated another one, where the world was washed of _fools._ A smirk tugs at Adachi's mouth.

He would need to be washed away as well, then.

Adachi ripped his gaze from the invisible, gray sky and moved onward.


	10. Pain

Persona 4: Drabbles

Drabble 10: Pain

Pain.

It rips Chie's heart open and makes it bleed.

She sat near Daidara's, watching Souji and Yukiko from the corner. She watched as Yukiko blushed, giggled and replied to something Souji said. Souji smiles and laughs lightly. He kisses Yukiko on the forehead, then her hand, lips brushing against her knuckles.

Chie feels her heart bleed, her eyes narrow.

It was so unfair.

So _painful._


	11. Fear

Drabble 11: Fear

Fear grips them all as they face down Izanami.

A split lip bleeds, running a trail of crimson down Kanji's jaw. Fear tightens its hold around his heart, choking him until it hurts to breathe, to move. There's something purely evil in the look Izanami's giving the group, something that makes everyone shiver and shudder in fear.

Izanami spouts some shit about 'Mankind's desires' and Kanji barely holds in his thoughts, his hate.

Quickly, he moves forward, fear still curling around his heart.


	12. Reincarnation

Drabble 12: Reincarnation

Sayoko is the reincarnation of the devil himself. Or so Souji assumes.

She traces a finger along the edge of his jaw, winking flirtatiously at the young hospital janitor. She touches him in places no adult should. Attempts to seduce him and does so shamelessly.

There's something in Sayoko's eyes that says she's only doing this for cynical, misanthropic reasons.

But Souji doesn't care.

He and She are reincarnation of the devil himself.

The Devil's Desires.


	13. Velvet

Drabble 13: Velvet

The Velvet Room rides through the nebulae. Slowly, purposefully, winding through a crooked and crossed path. Here, the Velvet Room sits, parked on a crossroad.

Igor has his hands folded over his cane; Margaret's holding the Persona Compendium too tightly.

There's a crystal ball in the middle of them, gleaming and glowing in the blue limousine. There's eight teenagers crowded around a cowering, pale man. The eighth boy, silver-haired, says something, something that defines the fate of the Velvet Room.

_"Throw the bastard in."_

Before they know it, Igor and Margaret are taking a left turn.

A left turn into _lies. _Into _fog._


	14. Luck

Drabble 14: Luck

There was nothing lucky about Saki Konishi.

She wasn't exceptionally pretty, she wasn't brilliantly smart, and she wasn't amazingly talented. No, there was nothing about her that was lucky at all.

So why was it her who had to find Yamano's body? Why was it her who had to become the twisted affection of a twisted detective? Didn't anyone think she wasn't already unlucky enough?

Saki Konishi, was just simply unlucky, wasn't she?


	15. Power

Drabble 15: Power

Dojima faces Adachi. The thick frame of glass doesn't prevent Dojima from wanting to sock Adachi in the face, from wanting to shake the younger detective until the goofy mask he wore pieced together again. It didn't prevent Dojima from wanting anything. It only prevented the grizzled detective from _doing _anything.

"Why? Why, Adachi, why?" That same word's been slipping from Dojima's mouth over and over and over again. But Adachi just sat back in his folding chair like it was a throne, watched Dojima with a coy smirk, and stayed silent.

But this time, Adachi speaks,

"It was all about power, about _boredom." _The words roll off his tongue so easily, so arrogantly. "I wanted to do something, wanted to be _better _than all the idiots around me."

Dojima thinks he sees a yellow tint in Adachi's black eyes, but only for a second.


	16. Necessity

Drabble 16: Necessity

Necessity.

Definition: The condition of being essential or indispensible.

To Naoto, Souji was a necessity to solving the murder case. Perhaps a mere necessary tool to her, something she could use for investigational purposes only. Then, she could maybe dispose of him.

But there was something about Souji that made Naoto's heart beat fast, her palms sweat, her cool manner dissolve.

Was this love?

Naoto hoped not.


	17. Separation

Drabble 17: Separation

The remaining members of the Investigation Team watched as the train gradually began to speed out of sight.

That was it. The murder case was over.

Teddie felt a piece of his heart chip away, fall apart. His Sensei was gone, and Teddie couldn't help but feel abandoned by Souji. Silently, Teddie cried. He remembered all the things he, his friends and Sensei had gone through. It was so painful to be separated from him, after everything they'd gone through.

Teddie jumped as his cell vibrated in his pocket. Taking it out and flipping it open, Teddie saw that he had gotten a text message from…

_Sensei?_

**_Absence Makes The Heart Grow Fonder._**

Teddie smiled, though the tears began to roll down his cheeks.


	18. Blue

Drabble 18: Blue

Blue was Naoto's favorite color.

The fact that she wore it nearly all the time should've been a dead giveaway. But, due to the vicious, snarling Shadows in Magatsu Inaba, nearly _all _of her blue jackets were ripped.

And that made Naoto quite irritated.

She examined the vertical rip in her jacket with a frown. Knowing her luck, it was no doubt beyond repair.

_THUD._

Naoto turned around, hand on the holster of her gun to face whoever was coming up the steps to her home. She relaxed when she realized it was none other than Kanji Tatsumi.

Kanji was staring at the rip in her jacket, fidgeting.

"Hey… uh, Naoto," A blush painted his cheeks, "I can… uh, fix that for you if you'd like."


	19. Favorite

Drabble 19: Favorite

Yukiko was Souji's favorite.

She was pretty, soft, demure, elegant… everything that Souji desired in a girl.

But then there was Chie.

Tough, confident, loud, (also) pretty Chie. Other things Souji desired in a girl.

Chie was (also) Souji's favorite.

Souji had to mull it over. How could two people who were polar opposites be so equally attractive to Souji? It was weird, odd.

Maybe they were both Souji's favorite?

No.

That was stupid.


	20. Moon

Drabble 20: Moon

Ai was a money-grubbing, backstabbing, mean, spiteful, cruel bitch. Enough said.

Or enough written, as Souji stared at the scrawl he'd written down on the paper in front of him. Absent-mindedly, he had written a list about Ai, about the things he liked and disliked about her. Currently, the 'like' section of the page was unsurprisingly blank. Souji tapped the sharp end of his pencil on the paper, leaving a tiny circle in place.

What _did _he like about Ai?

That question, was unsurprisingly hard to answer.

He thought about her, about the way she acted, talked. He thought about how her hair seemed too perfect, too styled. He thought about the many shopping bags she'd made him carry in Okina Station. He thought about her Arcana, The Moon, and how it meant mystery, and lies.

Absent-mindedly, Souji frowned and scrawled onto the paper, in the blank 'like' section…

_Nothing._


	21. Stars

Drabble 21: Stars

Nanako liked looking at the stars. They twinkled, danced and made the night sky so pretty. It was as if the darkness, the scariness, simply went away because of the stars. And stars were so pretty to look at in the reflection of the Samegawa River.

In the river, the reflections made it seem as if you could touch the stars.

Nanako remembers asking Souji where Heaven was.

'Where the sky is.' He had said. 'Where the stars and the moon and the sun are.'

Nanako leaned forward, looking into the water of the Samegawa River. The stars twinkled, making little gleaming reflections on the water's surface.

Smiling, Nanako reached for one of the reflections, and tapped it with her fingers. The water rippled.

And Nanako was reminded of Heaven once again.


	22. Logic

Drabble 22: Logic

In the TV World, logic was a pointless thing. This was a fact.

After all, the mere existence of the TV World didn't apply to logic. Logic was reality. The TV World was something unreal. Therefore, the TV World lacked a logical explanation for its existence. Yet, even though Naoto knew this, she failed to accept it.

Naoto bundled herself up in the blue comforter of her bed, feeling extremely weary after facing her Shadow. She felt as if she were about to collapse from the inside, yet she still persisted on trying to think up a logical explanation for the TV World's existence.

Her thoughts buzzed incoherently in her mind, failing to make sense even to her.

Finally closing her eyes, she tried to sleep.

Discovering a logical explanation for everything could wait. She needed rest.


	23. Robot

Drabble 23: Robot

Her Shadow was a robot. A cyborg.

Did it surprise Naoto? The answer to that question was a clear, unrelenting and ultimate no. It didn't surprise her. Not one bit. It was a childish-looking thing, half-man half-machine. But it reflected Naoto's inner self perfectly.

Inside, she was a lonely child, a tired kid who wished to see mommy and daddy again. Inside, Naoto shed a river of lonely, dejected tears. Inside, Naoto was a little girl.

That thought made Naoto's skin crawl. Made her long, pale fingers clench into fists.

She was a robot on the outside.

A lonely, dejected little girl on the inside.


	24. Emotion

Drabble 24: Emotion

Emotions were overrated.

This, Adachi knew.

They made you stop and _think_ about what you were doing. Made you feel guilty, angry, nervous. He wished everyone was exempt from emotions, exempt from revealing the things you felt inside. It revealed too much. It ruined people for good.

So, when he discovers Yamano's finally dead and hanging from a telephone wire, he wishes he wasn't breaking down on the floor and crying.

Emotions ruined ideals.

Ruined _good, upstanding _people.

Adachi smirks.


	25. Whispers

Drabble 25: Whispers

It had all started as whispers against the knob of his ear.

_"Taro… Taro…"_

Whispers that he'd craved to hear again.

_"Midnight… Channel… help…"_

He stared blankly into the dark screen. A man garbed in a delivery outfit stared back, eyes wide in their sockets. Eyes shadowed by days of not being able to sleep. Eyes hollow and emotionless…

_"Help… help… help…"_

The dark screen flickered, white, black, black, white. Static tossed against black. Snow-like.

_"Dead… black, red, black, red. Help… help… he killed… me help…"_

Taro Namatame's hand slides through the screen effortlessly. Painlessly.

The whispers do not stop. They grow louder in crescendo.

Namatame begins to think he's going insane.

_"HELP ME!!!!"_


	26. Secret

Drabble 26: Secret

"Let me tell you a secret…"

The silverette backed away as the tall man came closer, a scarlet tie dangling from his neck. The tall man's eyes gleamed yellow, golden, like golden orbs. The silverette felt his back touch against the blood-stained walls, the faceless posters.

The tall man placed something cold against the silverette's forehead. The silverette shivered.

"A secret…" The tall man leaned in, cocking the pistol hastily.

"This is the endgame."

**BANG!**


	27. Rain

Drabble 27: Rain

She's always hated the rain.

It gave the air a dreary feeling, made all the colors seem to fade. It made sense though, that she would compare the events in her life to rain. Chie's always hated the rain, but now, as she stood in the middle of the Shopping District, letting the rain run across her cheeks, she welcomed the somber feeling in the air.

Souji is gone. And when he left, he took the sunshine with him.

When he left, he took Chie's heart with him.

And that made Chie so sad.

Letting the rain run across her skin, Chie knows that the only thing she can really do is _remember._

She closes her eyes, and for the first time since Souji Seta left Inaba, she _smiles._


	28. Traces

Drabble 28: Traces

Dojima crosses another one out. Another American sedan that wasn't the one he was looking for. The big red X stares Dojima in the face, mocks him. He can almost hear whispers, leaking out from beneath the ink,

_You can't catch me, You can't catch me, You can't catch me…_

Dojima frowns, the harsh lines in his face deepening. He glances over his shoulder, looking at Nanako who was crashing on the couch. Nanako breathes in softly, turning over in her sleep.

He can see traces of Chisato Dojima's face in Nanako's. Nanako's nose is curved, her eyes are a light brown, and her cheeks are rosy.

That is something that tears at Dojima from the inside.

He doesn't want Nanako to look like Chisato.

He doesn't want traces.

Angrily, Dojima crossed the car data out a second time.


	29. Death

Drabble 29: Death

Death wasn't pleasant.

Mayumi Yamano felt as if she'd been ripped apart from the inside out, as if everything inside of her had been exposed to a sharp, unyielding knife. Death was worse than anything that damn man could've done to her, yet she felt as if… she deserved this fate.

But that was bullshit.


	30. Blood

Drabble 30: Blood

He didn't… he hadn't…

He didn't expect Yamano's body to end up like _that._

Adachi felt his lunch leave him, and end up in a gigantic white mass beside the street. He trembled, his eyes were wide with shock. He didn't think that… that… he didn't expect all that _blood._

He certainly was prepared for murder.

He wasn't prepared for what… happened after it.

All that _blood…_

It was nauseating. What was even more nauseating was that… that _bloody mass _was _his _fault.

Distantly, Adachi worried about being caught. Was throwing up his guts considered a suspicious act?

Maybe he should've just thrown himself in a TV then.


	31. Illusion

Drabble 31: Illusion

He knew she wasn't real. Wasn't really standing there in front of him.

She was a hallucination, an illusion. But he could see Saki Konishi standing there, extending a hand out to him, smiling her beautiful, flawless smile.

"Hana-chan…" He could hear her voice, so soft and so delicate. "Hana-chan, please come here…"

Standing there, Yosuke knows she's an illusion, a phantasmagoria. A ghost of something that was never real. He tries to take a step forward, but stops himself.

"Hana-chan…"

Smiling to himself, Yosuke turns on his heel, and walks away.


	32. Maelstrom

Drabble 32: Maelstrom

She felt as if she were stuck in a maelstrom of popularity.

Rise Kujikawa lets her memories flow out onto the page, puts her memories of Inaba into lyrics. Closing her eyes, she sings,

"We're running around with so much information…" She smiles, and lets the pen in her hand write by itself.

Her songs give her instant popularity, and she owes it all to the people she bonded with, the people she adores.

Rise Kujikawa smiles as she signs yet another autograph. Rise Kujikawa smiles as she signs the cover of her latest album, "Backside Of The TV.".

She was stuck in a maelstrom of popularity.


	33. Food

Drabble 33: Food

Hanako Ohtani liked food. _Loved _it. **Adored **it.

Hanako Ohtani also liked Souji Seta. And her crush was a huge secret to everyone, even Noriko Kashiwagi, who she had become great friends with. Hanako often found herself comparing Souji Seta to curry. She imagined he was spicy, hot on the inside. She often found herself fantasizing about a romance with him.

She wonders what it would be like to run her fingers through his cool gray hair, to stare into those steely eyes and know that he was _hers._

But then he had to run off with that Amagi girl.

And Hanako found herself comparing Souji to curry yet again.

Not only was he spicy, hot but he was _disgusting._

Hanako hated curry.

* * *

**Yeah... I do not like curry. At all.**

**It smells.  
**


	34. Midnight

Drabble 34: Midnight

Midnight was no longer Yosuke's favorite time of the day.

Back then, before everything had happened with Saki Konishi and Mayumi Yamano, Yosuke used to love to lie back on his bed and listen to the music blaring in his ears. He used to imagine that one day he and Saki would sit in this bed and hold each other tightly, whispering words of comfort and love to each other.

Now, with Saki dead, Yosuke discovers that midnight was an awful time. It brought back way too many memories of the days before the murder case, and Yosuke finds himself turning the music up louder, trying to block out the memories that plagued him.

But he will never forget the beautiful face of Saki Konishi.

Never.

* * *

**Yosuke Hanamura everyone. Let's give him a spoonful of get over it.**

**Nah just kidding. He's a nice kid.  
**


	35. River

Drabble 35: River

The Samegawa River was a beautiful place.

It was Nanako Dojima's favorite place to be. Her mother had often taken her here, to look at the fish, to talk and to have picnics with her father.

Now, it was a nostalgic and slightly scary place to be.

The memories crowded around her, as she sat by the riverbank, feet dipped in the cold, clear water.

The Samegawa Riverbed was beautiful, nostalgic and somber.


	36. Kiss

Drabble 36: Kiss

That forced kiss from Teddie, Kanji was sure, definitely, certainly and most assuredly didn't count as his first kiss.

This, had to be his first kiss. His first _true _kiss.

Naoto was certainly aggressive, feisty even, as she bit his bottom lip, fingers reaching for the tied sleeves of the jacket around his shoulders. Kanji shrugged his jacket off, listening as it fell beside them, rustling. Kanji's hands went to her neck, and Naoto deepened the kiss, thrusting her tongue in deep, choking him almost.

This was Kanji's first kiss.

Teddie's didn't count.


	37. Realization

Drabble 37: Realization

"Adachi." Souji said, finally, ultimately. He shivered as the name left his lips. It sounded foreign, absent inside his mouth, as if he hadn't really spent the last few weeks heeding the detective's advice when it came to Nanako.

Yosuke and Naoto seemed surprised as well. And Naoto had paled slightly, her eyes widening in something like…

Realization.

Everything molded into place in Souji's mind. Why hadn't he noticed sooner!? The blank stares out the window at Junes, the seemingly stupid slip-ups, the detective's sharp, almost intelligent gaze when he watched Souji from afar…

The pieces began to piece themselves back together. Like a broken vase gluing back all its pieces.


	38. Confrontation

Drabble 38: Confrontation

Yosuke's fist whizzed above Souji's head. Souji ducked, and brought his own fist into Yosuke's stomach. The boy wheezed, coughed and sagged against him. Souji breathed heavily, feeling Yosuke's chin resting on his shoulder.

The sounds of the Samegawa Riverbed buzzed distantly in his ears. Yosuke exhaled, warming Souji's ear lobe slightly.

"I guess you win again, huh?" Yosuke said, flatly, still breathing heavily, like rustling, dry paper.

"Guess so."

It'd been a long time since their last fight. Their last confrontation.


	39. Repeat

Drabble 39: Repeat

Thirteenth verse, same as the first.

"Why?"

Souji's bleeding. Badly, and he can feel his fingers snaking around Adachi's arm as he slowly falls to the ex-detective's feet. Adachi's smiling, and there's more than just a tinge of insanity in his golden eyes. Black tugs at Souji's vision and he struggles to stare up into Adachi's face.

Around him, Souji's friends were dead. He was the last to go down. And he'd be damned if he didn't go down defiant and angry and vindictive. Souji curls his fingers weakly around the frayed sleeves of Adachi's arm, and strangely, the ex-detective doesn't pull away.

"Why? Adachi, why?" Souji says; a repeat of the last five times he's asked. He's become repetitive, like a broken record.

Adachi kneels, and Souji still doesn't let go of his sleeve.

"Quit repeating yourself, kid." He replies, and lifts the hand that's holding his beloved pistol. "Just relax."


	40. Insanity

Drabble 40: Insanity

He hears a voice that isn't his.

It's deep, he realizes, and slightly melodic, like silver bells. It's also extremely unintelligible and Adachi has no idea how to discern what the hell it's saying. He's not surprised that yet another awful thing is happening to him. After all, he considers himself among one of the most unluckiest bastards to ever live. This would be just the icing on his bitter cake, going insane.

He also realizes that he tries his best to ignore it, and instead of listening to it, he smothers it with random thoughts. Until it eventually goes away and he can focus on more important things. Like the next big sale at Junes.

But, after watching the Yamano scandal on TV, and letting the remote drop from his hand and onto his apartment's hardwood floor… Adachi finds himself closing his eyes and listening. Anything to get his mind off the damn tacky bitch that he'd once adored.

_"Thou art I, I art thou…"_

The voice is so much like silver bells.

_"Thou art the one who **closes** the door."_


	41. Cloud

Drabble 41: Cloud

Yukiko doesn't like clouds. They cover up the sun, and make everything so dreary and dull and gray. Neutral, even. But they comfort her, since Souji is gone and she has no one to stand by. She sits on the cracked steps of the shrine, exhaling and inhaling, letting the humid air surround her.

"Yukiko…"

Yukiko's eyes snap open, and there stands Chie, in all her green glory, holding an ema between her fingers. Chie was blushing, her face going completely red, and before Yukiko can ask what she has in her hand, Chie stuffs the ema in her pockets.

"Oh, Chie."

Chie smiles, and nods, and then, after a small pause, replies,

"Heh, this is just like that day when we watched the clouds when we were little. You remember?"


	42. Parallel

Drabble 42: Parallel

Souji spots frightening parallels between Yosuke and Adachi. Yosuke is rejected, spurned by others. Adachi is rejected, spurned by others. Yosuke hates being in Inaba. Adachi hates being in the boonies.

And it were these frightening parallels that caused Souji to stay as far away from Yosuke as possible.

What if Yosuke was identical to Adachi, in more ways than one?


	43. Forte

Drabble 43: Forte

Lying had always been Souji's forte. His mastered skill.

He was whoever everyone wanted him to be.

He was sympathetic, he was firm, he was mean, he was kind, he was two-faced. He had always been so good at lying when it came to getting people to like him. Sure, yes, he was two-faced. And yes, it was immoral to lie to so many people.

But he needed to be the perfect person for everyone.

It was his forte.


	44. Major

Drabble 44: Major

"Ayane," Senpai says, so kind, always so kind. "Here try playing this. C Major, flat, okay?"

Ayane's not exactly focused on his pointers or tips, and though Senpai was extremely observant, and she was incredibly obvious, he seemed to not notice how red she was, or how she would shudder at his touch whenever his hands accidentally brushed hers on the instrument.

He plays his trumpet with passion, alongside her, along with her fumbling notes and awkward songs.

"Ayane," Senpai says, when they're near the Samegawa and they finally finish the bumbling, painful-sounding song. "You need to focus. C Major flat, okay?"

Maybe Senpai didn't notice the obvious?


	45. Playtime

Drabble 45: Playtime

"Teddie! Look what I made!" Nanako hurried to Teddie's side, carrying a small piece of paper in her tiny hand. On the paper, was a poorly, (Though Teddie wouldn't tell Nanako that.) drawn platypus, colored strange shades of brown and yellow.

"Wow, Nana-chan!" Teddie feigned an impressed face. He grinned, and sparkled, ever so slightly. So shallowly. "That's amazing!"

Nanako grins, and runs off in the other direction, probably to go show Souji or Adachi-san, and Teddie watches her, and when she's out of eye's view, the Shadow frowns.

_"It's such a shame that playtime can't last forever, hm?" _His Shadow whispers. And the frown on Teddie's face grows.


	46. Dress

Drabble 46: Dress

Naoto dresses to impress. She likes to keep an uptight, cool, detective-like façade. So she dresses the part. Naoto dresses to impress, and Naoto thinks being a true, manly detective will impress many people, so she hides everything through loose clothes, bulky royal blue and silver jackets, and a cap that will both hide her feminine face and give her a cool, detached look. Naoto dresses as a male to be an impressive, manly male. A true detective.

But, on the day she's forced to wear a pale white wedding dress, since Rise dragged her by the arm to Okina City to pick out wedding dresses for Naoto and Souji's wedding, Naoto doesn't want to dress to impress. On this day, she just wants to be herself and hide everything under tight ties, loose suit shirts and nice, ironed pants.

On this day, Naoto just wants to be herself. And that means pretending to be a man. A cool, neat detective. A true Sherlock Holmes. A true Bruce Wayne.

So she shows up in a tuxedo, and sees Souji smack his forehead.

She dresses to impress, and this time, she's impressed herself.


	47. Envious

Drabble 47: Envious

Chie's always had a bottomless envy towards Yukiko. And it was something that could, and would, never be resolved. Envy was not something you just accepted and that was the end of it. No, even after facing her Shadow, it gnaws at Chie, tells her to at least take control of the situation.

Chie doesn't want to. She can't hurt Yukiko, no matter how envious she was.

But, even then, it wouldn't be satiated.

It would continue to gnaw at Chie, no matter what she did.


	48. Grayscale

Drabble 48: Grayscale

The world runs into grayscale, like old film in front of Souji's eyes. He feels his arms around Yosuke as Yosuke cries into his shoulder. There's a voice in the back of his head that tells him he's moved up a level in Yosuke's Social Link, that he's finally finished it.

Yosuke is a whiny crybaby, Souji thinks. He's like a little girl. And Souji is so happy that he's finally finished this stupid Social Link.

_"One down," _Souji thinks, holding Yosuke tightly, frowning into the headphone-wearing boy's shoulder. _"Seven to go."_

The grayscale slowly fades.


	49. Daisies

Drabble 49: Daisies

"Aren't the daisies pretty, Nanako?" Adachi held one of the said flowers to Nanako's eye level. It was a small, pathetic-looking thing, but to Nanako, it was gorgeous all on its own. She took from Adachi's fingers tentatively, smiling her thanks.

"Yeah! They're really pretty, Adachi-san!"

"Too bad they usually wilt this time of year," Adachi-san frowned, looking past Nanako at something distant. "I guess, everything wilts every now and then, no matter how pretty they are, huh?"

Nanako tilted her head to the side, looking up at Adachi-san quizzically.

What did he mean?


	50. Time

Drabble 50: Time

Time doesn't stop for anyone. It never will. But at this moment, Souji just wished time would stop. That everything would freeze in place like frozen icicles in the middle of January, like they should been, near the end of December.

His cellphone drops from his fingers, clanking onto the floor with a loud, distant, thud. Naoto's scream rings in his ears, the loudest sound he has ever heard. He'd failed. They'd failed.

Somehow, he can imagine Adachi laughing beneath a sky of red and black, and Igor and Margaret shaking their heads, disappointed in him.

Souji dropped to his knees, the fog leaked out from between the cracks of his bedroom door, hugging him, enveloping him in an eerie, creepy gray mist.

At that moment, he wished time would freeze.

* * *

**Halfway through!**


	51. Marooned

Drabble 51: Marooned

Black hands. Sharp-clawed, pulling them all down into the abyss. Souji could still feel where everyone had pushed him out of the way, could still hear his friends screaming out his name, could still feel Izanami's wretched gaze fixed on him.

Hope, that was what he felt, marooned by everyone.

He needed hope. Even though he was marooned.


	52. Intuition

Drabble 52: Intuition

This isn't the man he knows.

That much, Dojima knows.

This isn't the Adachi he remembers. The Adachi that Dojima remembers was a happy, energetic, air-headed man. This man, the one sitting before him in the interrogation room is someone who has completely, and totally lost their mind.

This man is cynical. Adachi wasn't cynical. But this Adachi is.

Where had Dojima's intuition gone?


	53. Fool

Drabble 53: Fool

Souji was a fool. Had been a fool.

He leaned against the curved, rounded walls of Magatsu Mandala's long way, sword dangling from a broken arm, fingers barely clenched around the cylindrical hilt. His arm was bent at an odd angle, his forehead had a large gash along its side…

And he was alone.

He'd been a fool to think they could face Adachi, at that point in their experience. The man had brutally destroyed them, and they had all… scattered. Souji was alone. He didn't know where the others were. He simply knew that he was alone. Alone and broken and battered and absolutely _foolish._

Souji was sinking, sinking into an abyss from which he would never reemerge.

He was such a fool to think he could face down another fool.


	54. Train

Drabble 54: Train

Souji sat among the remains of the train he had been riding back to his hometown. He crawled, something sharp, metallic, cold, was sticking out of his leg, preventing its use. He was… useless. Absolutely useless.

He couldn't die here, not amongst pieces of debris, not without dying nobly in the TV, at a villain's hand.

Souji continued to crawl, searching for his phone. He would call. That's what he would do.

His fingers brushed a piece of paper, and Souji instinctively curled his fingers around it. On the piece of paper… the photograph, the picture, stood him and his friends. His friends…

They wouldn't take this news well.


	55. ARISU

Drabble 55: ARISU

It was like a Wonderland, the Other World. A place of extreme bizarreness, a place Souji lost himself in, cutting down monsters that looked as if they'd come out of a child's fantasy book. This place was bizarre. Strange. Unreal. Dream-like.

The Other World was a real-life Wonderland. Or Underland, or whatever. This place was beautiful, in its own, strange, murderous, dangerous way.

This was a place you could lose yourself in.

* * *

**Props to whoever figures out what ARISU means in Japanese.**


	56. Sorry

Drabble 56: Sorry

"Sorry."

"What are you apologizing for?"

What was he apologizing for? The apology had come out without him realizing it. Had come out blankly, listlessly, as if he weren't really focusing on it.

So really, what was he apologizing for? Adachi had no idea.

Was it his subconscious that had acted? The little shreds of remorse he held, threaded within his being, eating away at him as time went on, as Nanako became injured during his little _game?_


	57. Clue

Drabble 57: Clue

It was one of those few times that Souji played games with Nanako.

However. He wasn't playing with Nanako. No, his young cousin had gone to bed hours ago, right after Dojima passed out on the couch. He was playing Clue with Adachi now. The fact that Adachi was drunk, out-of-his-mind, and babbling as always didn't help much as they played.

Souji had chosen Miss Scarlett, opting to roll first in the game, and Adachi had eyed the red-dressed figurine eagerly. He'd wanted to go first, obviously. But he took Mrs. White, and the two had continued on.

It was a bizarre game of Clue, and Souji had been the one to come to the conclusion first.

"Mrs. White in the Observatory, with the Baseball Bat."

Adachi had laughed, congratulated him, and strangely, Souji felt something writhe within his stomach, something dark and twisted.

He assumed it was Nanako's science project.

* * *

**Clue = Favorite Board Game evers.**


	58. Lost

Drabble 58: Lost

Nanako was lost. Lost alone in the woods, without her Big Bro and her Father and she was scared. So very scared and so very afraid.

Nanako tripped, falling on a pile of twigs, and leaves and something sharp. She hissed in pain, scrambling to get back up, while wiping grass stains off of her dress. Nanako was crying, the tears dripping down her dirt-stained face much like liquid diamonds. What if no one ever found her?

What would she do then?


	59. Freudian

Drabble 59: Freudian

"I hate you!"

It had been a small, Freudian Slip. But the damage had been done. Rise had said the unthinkable, and Souji, surprised, had stepped back away from the furious red-head, his eyes wide with surprise. Rise's hands clamped over her mouth, and the tears that had begun to run furiously down her face began to run even more furiously, like flowing rivers, like icy diamonds.

Souji's eyebrows curled downwards, his scowl deepened, and the small cottage that he and Rise had bought when they first got married, seemed so incredibly, so painfully silent.

"Fine!" Souji screamed back, "Fine! Go ahead!"

Rise's hands unclamped, and she hissed, her voice a sharp, whistling, angry sound,

"What does Naoto have that I don't, huh!? WHAT!?"

Souji's head jerked to the side, his fists clenched, and then he muttered something to himself. Rise seemed to only grow angrier, and she yelled,

"WHAT!" She stomped forward, then furled her fingers in Souji's collar. "WHAT!"

He pushed her, and she stumbled backwards, only to fall on her backside. He ran, he ran out, and Rise yelled obscenities at him, following him outside as he headed for his car,

"I saw you two! I saw!"

"I don't care!"

The neighbors had begun gathering outside, obviously perturbed by the sound. Souji punched the car, and glared at Rise.

It had been a small, Freudian Slip.


	60. Diamonds

Drabble 60: Diamonds

"Senpai…"

Souji turned to face the fidgeting Kanji. In truth, the incredibly soft-hearted thug looked strange, standing in that aisle while Souji helped Yosuke out with work at Junes. Placing a can of tomatoes upon the odd pyramid shaped structure of tomato cans, the silverette turned to face the odd acting underclassman.

"Good morning Kanji. What is it?" Souji asked, smiling. He always smiled, always for his friends. It had been a few years after the murders, after Adachi had been sent to prison once and for all, and Souji visited often, and even after everything they'd been through together, the team still needed Souji's guidance on their most trivial issues. The silverette had assumed that Kanji's issue was trivial, and most likely had something to do with Naoto. Souji picked up another tomato can.

"Girls…" Kanji blushed, looked off to the side, and tried to get a real tough face on, as if he were still holding onto his false, manly, posterior. "G-Girls… like diamonds, right?"

The can Souji was holding promptly fell from his fingers and onto the floor, where the can imploded and caked the two's feet in tomato.


	61. Cat

Drabble 61: Cat

Souji held the little red bowl of cat food out to the starving orange tabby. It hissed at him, the arc of its back stretching in the air as it attempted to make itself bigger and scare Souji.

"Wow. That's one mangy cat, huh, kid?"

Souji looked over his shoulder over at the voice as the cat's hisses slowly turned to a growl. Adachi stood there, smiling down at Souji with that same goofy grin that he always had plastered on his face, scratching the back of his head, ruffling a few strands of the man's dark shock of black hair.

"Yes," Souji replied, nodding, smiling, thankful for the distraction from the hissing, angry cat. "But the cat's starving so I can't really… leave it here, right?"

"Oh!" Adachi cocked his head to the side, as if looking around at the cat as it growled. "Yeah, guess not. That'd be… yeesh, what's the word… immoral!"

Though Souji didn't refrain from telling Adachi that immoral was too strong of an adjective for something as simple as feeding a cat, he smiled tiredly at Adachi. It was weird talking to man when he wasn't sitting around a dinner table chatting about minor things such as how boring school was or if he had any girlfriends yet. And, the man being Adachi, the conversation was tiresome anyway, as the man liked to talk decidedly _too much._

As the two wished each other well as Adachi left, Souji turned his attention back to the cat and noticed… that a now stuffed cat was walking away from the empty bowl.


	62. Absent

Drabble 62: Absent

"_Why… why is Dad never home?"_

Her sobs are muffled by the tear-stained flesh of her arms, and the fact that Nanako still has enough pride to not cry too loud. She's no baby. No mewling, drooling child. She's just a girl, an angel, crying for her mother because without her mother, her wings are ripped from her back.

She can hear the soft snores of Souji in the room next to hers.


	63. Morgue

Drabble 62: Morgue

It's funny, almost hilarious how there are no guards stationed anywhere by the morgue. It's actually… vaguely disturbing. What if some pervo necrophiliac were to take one of the bodies.

He wipes a hand across Yamano's bloodstained face, unafraid of the police being able to find his DNA. They've already done an autopsy on the little whore's body. They found nothing.

_Not a trace of Adachi._

"This all could've been avoided," He whispers, solemnly, sadly. He's a little tipsy, considering the fact that he scared himself half to death today. He drank his sorrows, and somehow, his little binge got him here. The hospital morgue.

"If you had just opened your legs up for one more person, _Yamano_."


	64. Investigation

Drabble 62: Investigation

Naoto was a master of investigation. A master of finding the truths behind the most complex lies. A master of discovering what was false and what was truth.

But then,

_How could I have missed this?_

The bullet rips through her shoulder, she does a ragged sort of dance jaggedly through the air before falling to the ground, her cheek scraping open as it hit the floor. Her gun, her beloved Algernon, was swung from her grasp, skittering across the floor until it escaped several centimeters from her line of sight.

_How?_


	65. Privacy

Drabble 62: Privacy

Souji has always reveled in his privacy. There was nothing that they knew about him, yet Souji knew all about his closest friends, the ones he'd traveled through a television with. He knew their darkest, most disparaging secrets.

He reveled in the fact that they knew absolutely nothing about him, but trusted him as if he were their parent.

He loved it.


	66. Simulation

Drabble 66: Simulation

If there had been one thing, a single, damning thing that Yosuke had not admitted to Souji, it would have to be his secret, so very, very secret obsession with Dating Sims. Especially, oh yes, especially, the ones that featured athletic girls in high-kick shorts and green sweaters and sporting the most well-combed of bowl cuts.

He loved Dating Sims. It had been an **incredibly **hush-hush mania of his. Back, in the days when he would wander through the city he used to live in instead of being so bored in this stupid countryside, he would crawl into his room on the few bad days he had and he would pop in a Dating Sim (Preferably _Gankuro Girls 2, _a personal favorite of his) and he would stay in his man-cave until he pulled himself out of his shitty mood and could go back to his more… open habits and addictions.

But mainly, he cherished Dating Sims because in those, he could be cool, be like Souji, could take back the insensitive and mean-spirited things he said on accident.

In his simulations, his secret manias…

He could get the Chie-like characters to fall for him.


	67. Silly

Drabble 64: Silly

Teddie was silly, nonsensical.

But Rise liked the childish bear-Shadow _thing _anyway. She loved him because he had no secrets. He was not mysterious, nor as heroic as Souji. Teddie had a bravery that was his own design.

And Rise loved him for it.

"Teddie…" Her whisper is soft in the air, but there is something in the undertones of the single non-sentence that is… loving. Teddie curled into a ball, sleeping, his breath pushing a few strands of very golden, very bright hair from his face. Rise sat over him, an almost… silly, nonsensical expression on her face.

She smiled.

"Teddie."


	68. Megalomaniac

Drabble 68: Megalomaniac

Adachi's greed for power, was only equal to his greed and desire for amusement. For something to play that could keep his _attention _from other things, like social climbers. Like Saki Konishi and Mayumi Yamano.

His megalomania made Souji wonder if Adachi truly was his foil. The contrast between them was truly remarkable. Where Adachi's hair was a messy, shaggy shock of darkness… Souji's was a neat, perfect and silver shade of light. Where Adachi was truly, irrevocably evil… Souji was a saint. But when it came to the desire for power, for _importance… _they were… parallel.

Though he would surely never admit it, Souji hungered for importance, for the chance to make his mark upon the world and show everyone that _he _was better than them. Adachi and Souji shared the same greedy fingers for power.

And they shared the same fate that, no matter what they did, that power would always be a few inches ahead of their grasp. And it would always slip away, like a balloon from a child's fingers, going higher and higher away from them.

"_It's Adachi." _And Souji turns back into Aiya's, like it's his destiny. Yosuke pats him on the back. Naoto bows her head, pride hurting slightly because Souji got to the answer before she did.


	69. Cold

Drabble 64: Cold

If one were to describe Naoto Shirogane, the first word that would probably come to their mind would be cold. Emotionless. Robotic-like. In truth, the Detective Prince was a bubbling pond of emotion beneath the mask that she so proudly wore. And if one were to see beneath that mask, the first word that would come to their mind, to describe Naoto would be,

Emotional.

She bottled up everything, just to emulate those she found to be _cool, _and it gave her the adverse effect of being cold.

Even if she truly wasn't.


	70. Friend

Drabble 64: Friend

"We'll be friends forever, right?" Yukiko asked, wringing her hands in the hem of her dress. She had flushed, looked away from Chie as they sat on the bench by the Samegawa River, watching little kids playing in the hot June day. They had tried to play with them, only to get shot down because they were too _little._

They were eight! Eight was big enough!

But they resigned themselves to sitting on the bench, watching as drops of water danced and arced in the air like floating crystals, catching the last few dying beams of the sunset before it disappeared beneath the hills and the whole world went out like a flickering torch inside of a cold, rustic castle. They talked about inane things, such as how _boring _their philosophy teacher, Mrs. Higuchi was, or the amount of homework Mr. Date threw on them at the last second. But suddenly, Yukiko had let slip that sudden question, because, for some reason, her subconscious needed to know. It was a question that needed to be answered.

Chie looked at her, cocked her head to the side, and then grinned, like Yukiko had something incredibly amusing, rather than a question of Chie's loyalty. She replied, mouth moving in that animated way that reminded Yukiko of someone chewing, happily,

"Of course! Yukiko, I'll be like… your… _Prince _or something!"


	71. Pragmatist

Drabble 64: Pragmatist

Naoto always had been the pragmatist. Her straight-forward, rational, practical thinking had been what drew Souji to her. She was a lot like him, in that case. They were both rational thinkers. Logic and reason was the forefront of their brains.

"S-Senpai, y-you're getting too close." Naoto murmured, as Souji took her in his arms and hugged her. He leaned in, soft gray curls tickling her ear as he whispered, breath warm on the lobe of her ear and she flushed crimson,

"Naoto… we're lovers. Do the rational thing."

_Kiss me, _he would've added, but he didn't want to embarrass Naoto or shatter her pride. She seemed to have gotten the message because her body twitched and…

She kneed him in the crotch.

Clutching his wonderful nads with both hands, feeling tears brim at his silver eyes, Souji crumpled to the ground of his bedroom, head smacking the corner of his coffee table for good measure. Looming above him, looking taller than she really was, Naoto shot him a dark look.

"Seta, when I say you are getting too close, you are to back away from me."


	72. Chariot

Drabble 72: Chariot

Souji clutched his nads, face grimacing as Chie stepped back, bouncing back and forth on her feet, looking almost… airy as she stood in what _she _called a fighting stance. Souji gasped, tears brimming at the edge of his gray eyes.

"C'mon, Souji-kun! You are _so _weak!" She proclaimed, loud enough for anyone in the town over to hear.

She really was the Chariot, Chie Satonaka. Adventurous, boisterous, _(Slightly annoying), _loud.


	73. Odd

Drabble 73: Odd

"_Shit, let 'em look."_

Kanji gingerly places one of the little plush dolls on the shelves of his mother's shop. Tatsumi Textiles is transformed in a spectacle of cuteness, and for a reason Kanji could easily explain, there are people staring at him. They know he sewed these, all by himself.

He knows they think he's odd, but _shit let 'em look. _He doesn't care.


	74. Loser

Drabble 74: Loser

"_You've got to __**surround **__yourself with people to block out the pain of isolation!"_

For some reason, the fingers around Yosuke's clunky headphones tighten, freeze. He's blocking things out again. He's reverting into that inferiority complex that just _pisses _him off. It's bullshit. He shouldn't feel inferior, not to _this _thing. Not to this imposter, or whatever it was according to that dumb bear.

But it is the truth. The truth leaks out from the NotYosuke's mouth and he feels like a _loser. _Because it is true, isn't it? That he blocks out the pain of being forced into the sticks by his Dad? That he _has _to have friends to make himself feel better? That he _has _to have some sort of excitement in life?

"**YOU'RE NOT ME!"**

He feels like an inferior loser once more, before blacking out and hitting the concrete of Konishi Liquors.


	75. Mirror

Drabble 75: Mirror

There's that feeling of being mirrored, as he stares into Adachi's Shadow-yellow eyes, Magatsu Izanagi looming behind the former detective like a dark figure. It's his Persona, Souji realizes. And it's something that makes him wonder, as the two fight, hell-bent on solving the case and/or getting away with it.

Was Adachi just like him, deep inside?

Did Adachi think the same things as him, did Adachi have the same past as him? Shepherded from one city to another at the behest of his parents? Adachi used Heat Riser once more and Souji notices, not for the first time, that Adachi's eyes never leave him.

What was he thinking, Souji wondered.

There's that feeling of looking into a mirror. A crazed psycho stares back, a mirror of Izanagi yet only more malevolent standing behind the said psycho.

For some reason, Souji feels an odd sort of empathetic bond with Adachi.

And he doesn't want to.


	76. Chaotic

Drabble 76: Chaotic

_A chaotic evil character does whatever his greed, hatred, and lust for destruction drive him to do. He is hot-tempered, vicious, arbitrarily violent, and unpredictable. If he is simply out for whatever he can get, he is ruthless and brutal. If he is committed to the spread of evil and chaos, he is even worse. Thankfully, his plans are haphazard, and any groups he joins or forms are poorly organized. Typically, chaotic evil people can be made to work together only by force, and their leader lasts only as long as he can thwart attempts to topple or assassinate him._

Adachi stared blankly at the screen, fingers languidly spread across the computer mouse like some fan made entirely of flesh. Dojima is gone, thankfully, for he'd chew Adachi out if he realized that the only thing Adachi did when he was alone, was look at movie reviews, drink coffee and contemplate the world's pathetic existence. _(Why can't it all just be swallowed by the fog?)_

He's Chaotic Evil. Understandable. Everything, the world, the people in it, is boring. There are expectations expected of him. And he's _sick of them._

Dojima opens the door, and quickly, Adachi closes the window.

Not for the first time, Adachi wonders if what he's really done, is worth the destruction it's caused.


	77. Despair

Drabble 77: Despair

Taro Namatame had never wanted Mayumi Yamano to end up dead. Sure, it might've happened, earlier on, when they'd started this whole affair and for the first time since he was forced into betrothal with Misuzu, he had fallen in love. Misuzu Hiiragi was a well-respected lady, who's followers were like a well-trained legion.

She would've ended up dead, somehow or another.

Even if Namatame didn't want her to. He loved her.

He's crying into the blankets of his futon. His eyes are watering. There are dark moisture spots everywhere and… and… and…

He's in despair.


	78. Breaking

Drabble 78: Breaking

Yosuke's crying, and he knows Souji is watching him from beside the Riverbed, waiting for Yosuke to say something else.

He can't get over Saki. She's dead and he feels… responsible somehow. Like it's _his _fault when he knows for a fact that it's not. But… he can't help but feel like it's his fault. Like it should be his fault.

He's frightened.

He's breaking.

Yosuke has broken.

Souji Seta watches his friend calmly beside the Riverbed, the only sounds being Yosuke's pathetic sobbing and the buzzing of insects in the distance.


	79. Torrent

Drabble 78: Torrent

Souji and Rise hid away from a torrent of reporters. Inaba, small as it was, had a strange amount of hiding spots. They were almost abundant in nature, and, currently, Rise Kujikawa and Souji Seta were crouched painfully inside of the Yasogami Shrine, bent in odd ways as the reporters and newscasters searched for them.

He had returned to Inaba after two years of leaving the Investigation Team without their leader. He'd had a long-distance relationship with Rise since then, often calling her and sending her long, wonderful e-mails about his escapades in Tokyo, but it hadn't been the same without seeing each other.

So, Souji had returned to her, and the Investigation Team, after two long years.

And that had been at the same time that Rise's career was reaching its peak.

The media had been all over Rise and her boyfriend.

So the two resorted to hiding in cramped, dark places.

Souji wondered vaguely what Naoto was doing. He'd been having a secret relationship with the Detective Prince on the side.

It was then that he realized the media was going to be posting all of this stuff everywhere.

He was screwed.

The two girls would probably be in a torrent of rage.


	80. Hands

Drabble 80: Hands

These were the hands of a manipulator. Of a masterful killer, of a bumbling cop; a stubborn, stalwart _idiot. _The way he stares at the empty television screen that lays in the middle of the Amagi Inn suggests not a hint of remorse for the atrocious action he had just committed. The way he stares at the hands of a manipulator suggest something else: fascination.

Fascination with the power he has received.

He's frowning, that tight, angry sort of frown that just doesn't look _right _on his face and he ponders the workings of the television. He is lazy, and would not go to the greatest extremes to figure out the workings of the television. But he is good at covering his tracks, and there is no _**way **_that they'll find Yamano alive. She's stuck inside the television.

The dim light of the Amagi Inn paints his hands into a painfully pale color, bone-white, like the hands of a Reaper. He's revolving his wrist like some cheap street entertainer. Slowly, that frown turns into an even tighter smile, that resembles a shark's grin, more than an actual, genuine smile.

These are the hands of a powerful, angry person.


	81. One

Drabble 81: One

Nanako was alone. Well, not _completely _alone.

As if on cue, to prove that point, the delivery man held her even tighter than before, arms cross across Nanako Dojima's neck, and splayed along her tummy, tightly, almost vice-like, as if letting Nanako go meant the end of the world.

She had no idea where she was. A yellow fog shrouded the area around her, hugging the distant shadows of what she assumed were statues, hugging her and the delivery man, hugging the marble floor that she could feel beneath her feet.

She was completely, and utterly alone.

She almost always was alone.

And being alone, frightened Nanako.


	82. Transparent

Drabble 82: Transparent

It was clearly evident, to Naoto Shirogane, that Kanji Tatsumi had his emotions sewn onto his sleeves. The fact that the delinquent was so incredibly… _transparent,_ when it came to such subtle things as lying and applying diplomacy to simple arguments slightly aggravated Naoto. However, it made the bleach-blond delinquent so incredibly… intriguing. She'd never, in her whole life, ever met someone like Kanji Tatsumi.

She had grown up around adults, and thus emulated the detectives, her grandfather, and all the wise and carefully adults she'd grown up around. And from her watchings, she had deduced that it was always _wise _to hide your emotions when it came to cases, to _life itself._

However, and the reason was unclear even to smart, intelligent Naoto Shirogane, she found the way Kanji used his emotions in stride to be incredibly… endearing.


	83. Devil

Drabble 83: Devil

Sayoko Uehara was using him for reasons Souji didn't care to ponder. Reasons that, perhaps, should've remained irrelevant. But that hasn't stopped him from asking, even as she undoes his belt in a meticulous, careful fashion,

"Why are you doing this?"

She throws the belt behind her, where it hits the closet wall and lands with a slight _clink _on top of other closet paraphernalia, like yellow buckets with Caution on them. And mops. And other things Souji doesn't care about.

Sayoko brings her eyes upwards, to lock with his silver.

The smile she gives him tells Souji that he's not going to have an answer.


	84. White

Drabble 85: White

"_You…"_

Adachi runs his hands through the silver hair. The red-eyed woman is staring at him, with an intensity that he cannot pinpoint. She's completely and totally placid, like a blank canvas and yet, she is so _familiar._

A giant centipede crawls around them, encircling them as if it were a mock Oroboros. She's dead, Adachi tries to remind himself. Dead, because no one's skin is _that white. _

The smirk that spreads across her face is a promise of power, power that will irrevocably turn him corrupt. And Adachi welcomes it.

Slowly, Izanami presses a kiss to his nose, before disappearing.

The centipede disappears as well.

They always disappear.


	85. Magenta

Drabble 85: Magenta

"Rise…"

The newly-wed Rise Kujikawa turned to Souji, shooting him an oddly cheerful grin. "Yeah? What is it, Senpai? Do you like them?" She gestured to the comforter, colored a disgusting shade of pink, and smiled benignly at him.

"Rise, they're pink."

"No," She shook her head. "They're magenta."

"Pink. We're getting rid of them."

Rise stamped her foot childishly, "Oh come on, Senpai! Where's your sense of adventure?"

Souji stared at the disgustingly pink (_Magenta) _shade, and frowned.


	86. Cry

Drabble 86: Cry

"_Real men do not cry. So that's enough."_

Naoto wiped away her tears ferociously, angrily sweeping her eyes with as much force as if she were trying to hit someone. Still, however, the tears kept coming, brimming over her ultramarine and dashing her smooth skin with liquid diamonds. Naoto hugged her knees to her chest, shaking like a poor forgotten leaf dangling on a tree's branches.

Her parents were dead, and she could still see the flashes of red and blue, the sounds of ambulance sirens in the distance, and harried voices asking Naoto if she was alright.

She was, she had lied. She was.

Long, pale fingers curled in her dark-blue hair, and with every hitching sob, Naoto wished time would go backwards.

"_A child's fantasy, nothing more."_


	87. Kings

Drabble 87: Kings

"So, Souji-kun," Adachi's punch across Souji's cheek left a bitter sting. "I guess this is checkmate, huh?"

Checkmate? Hah, then did that make him the White King? Souji glared at the man that loomed above him, then glanced over to his double-handed sword, inches away from his fingers. Adachi stomped on his wrist, and Souji hissed in pain before attempting to get up.

Adachi cocked his gun, and grinned down at him,

"Uh-uh, I'm afraid I can't let you have that. Unfair advantage, y'know?"

Souji stared down the barrel of the pistol, gesturing towards it with his head,

"Then what is this, Adachi-san?"

"A handicap." Adachi's grin turned a little dark. "I need it to get rid of you, once and for all."

"This really is only a game to you, isn't it?" Souji hadn't expected to die here, in the room he'd slept in for the past three months. He hadn't expected to come to the obvious conclusion, before anyone else. Adachi had, however. He wouldn't have brought the gun if he thought anything else.

"Of course. What else could it be?" Adachi shifted his shoe on Souji's wrist, sighing a little, getting bored with this boring charade.

"An excuse to change the world." Answered Souji. Adachi's grin only widened even more.

"An excuse to play a game, to screw with people's heads." Adachi retorted, looking down at Souji. "Y'know kid, I like you."

"Funny," Souji was going to go down, defiant to the last. "I don't."


	88. Constrict

Drabble 88: Constrict

His fingers laced around the area of her neck. Yosuke's obsession, _love, _of asphyxia had frightened Chie and when he'd asked her to… She blushed, unable to finish the sentence, and Yosuke choked out some unintelligible garble of words, and Chie reminded herself of what she was doing and that it needed her complete attention.

She loved Yosuke, despite his odd likings.


	89. Bore

Drabble 89: Bore

Yukiko was such a bore, thought Souji Seta. She was too polite, too womanly. Chie was boring as well, in respect. Chie was too aggressive, vicious when it came to fevered kissing out of Souji's other girlfriends' sight.

Rise was a bore as well. Too cliché, too open in her affections for him.

And then there was Naoto. She was fazed, very much so, when he asked her on a date. Unlike the other girls, who only smiled and accepted, wondering when he was going to get around to asking them. _(Arrogant, Souji thinks.) _But Naoto declined.

That, was what drew Souji to her. Like a moth to flame. She wasn't at all predictable, like the other girls in his team.


	90. Past

Drabble 90: Past

The gleaming red eyes of the dead Izanami locked with the beautifully dark eyes of her husband, Izanagi. She watched him from the gates of Yomi, unable to go any further due to the restrictions of Yomi's guardian and master, Amatsu-Mikaboshi. Her husband watched her, only inches away, safely out of her reach.

"Because of this," She dipped her head, silver hair hanging in front of her eyes. A centipede crawled across her cheek, across her pale, paper-white nose. "I shall kill one-thousand men every day."

Izanagi glared at her, dark, messily cut hair standing in contrast to her pale features. His figure, facial expressions, coloring flickered between three people. Izanami had forgotten what her husband looked like, long-ago. These days, he took on the appearance of a certain detective, whom she'd given power. Often, the young detective would become a harried delivery man, who'd closed his eyes to the truth. And then, sometimes, the delivery man would become a young child, who'd represented her lost and destroyed hope for mankind.

"Then I shall give birth to one-thousand five-hundred more."


	91. Featherman R

Drabble 91: Featherman-R

Rise held the offending object between her fingers, a bemused yet slightly minx-like expression plastered over her face.

"Hey, Naoto-kun."

Naoto, who was bending over the small trunk in her room to retrieve something, glanced up at Rise, only to immediately blush, her face turning the color of delectable strawberries. She was staring at the offending object held delicately between Rise's fingers, extremely embarrassed.

"K-Kujikawa, put those away!"

"But Naoto-kun!" Rise pouted, swinging the Featherman-R panties across the Detective Prince's room. "It's so cute!"

Rise was never allowed in Naoto's bedroom again.


	92. Sun

Drabble 92: Sun

_Amaterasu._

Yukiko admired the silver card which bore the golden Amaterasu's figure on it, rubbing a finger along the enameled trims of her means to which she summoned her Persona. It was odd, really, to think of herself as being personified as the Sun Goddess Of Japan, but Yukiko supposed it made sense.

She tried to be fiery, to the point where her chosen name, 'Snow Child' made it almost contradictory. She didn't like the cold, the snow. It melted so terribly easily, and it was so incredibly worthless.

It was a name that no longer suited her.

"Souji-kun…" She wrapped her arms around her dearest friend, embracing the boy who'd taught her that she wasn't worthless, not at all.

"Thank you."


	93. Errant

Drabble 93: Errant

Kanji's errant nature scared his poor, aging mother. She worried, darkly for her delinquent son's nature of beating up the local biker gangs. He had a good heart in him, doing the latter for her, since the biker gangs kept her up all night.

So, she was… happy, when she saw the nice kids that came into the shop looking for her son. She sat there, smiling up at them, happy that her sinful son had found such nice, well-dressed and polite kids. (She couldn't say much for the kid with the headphones. He was the Junes kid, and Yumiko Tatsumi, like everyone else in the Shopping District, didn't care much for Junes.)

She wondered, vaguely, if that hat-wearing boy was Kanji's friend as well. Naoto Shirogane, was his name. Yumiko Tatsumi liked him.

Naoto seemed a little effeminate, however. And her son was a manly man.


	94. Autophobia

Drabble 94: Autophobia

"I…"

Souji glanced at Yosuke, who sat eagerly across from him inside the Junes Food Court, headphones dangling haphazardly across his shoulders, the buzzing of some pop song lingering in the tense air between them. Souji had his hands folded in front of him, chewing nervously on his bottom lip, looking up every now and then at his best friend. Yosuke felt as if… something very bad were about to happen.

And then Souji said it, and Yosuke felt as if you could hear a pin drop,

"Y-Yosuke, I…" He stopped, paused, looked up at Yosuke. "I'm… I have a phobia of…" Paused. Looked up. Shifted in the white-washed chair. "Being alone."

"What?"


	95. Annoyance

Drabble 95: Annoyance

If there was one thing, Ryotaro Dojima, would have loved to admit out loud to the world, it would be of how little he thought of his partner. Adachi, he'd come to know, was clumsy, foolish and jumped to conclusions too quickly. Dojima had preferred working alone, for the exact reason that he would have to listen to rookies' questions if he had a partner. And he'd staged this complaint to the Chief when he was told he was getting a partner from the Shinjuku Precinct.

His first impression of Adachi was a good one, however. The man reminded him of a bat not yet ready to unfurl its wings as he jumped off the station, luggage slung over one arm. He looked broody, smart, quiet. Dojima had always liked the quiet ones.

And then Tohru Adachi opened his mouth.

Dojima deemed him an annoyance, and a disappointment.


	96. Reunion

Drabble 96: Reunion

Strip clubs had never, ever been Souji's thing. They were, and always would be, Kiriko's thing. So when she dragged him to this god-awful place, stamped right in the middle of nowhere, Souji had resigned to taking a seat in the back and sipping on a dirty martini while his girlfriend hopped around to find strippers they could both (She) could enjoy.

This place smelled. Awful. And the techno music wasn't much better.

It'd been ten years after Inaba, and Souji had very nearly forgotten about all of his friends. However, he would never, ever be able to forget about Teddie's bright blond hair, or Yosuke's clunky headphones.

So he very nearly spat out his martini when he saw just that.

"Y-Yosuke!" The man with the headphones turned around, as did the kid with blond hair.

It had to have been the most awkward reunion the world had ever seen.


	97. Detective

Drabble 97: Detective

Chie Satonaka pinned her badge to her jacket, grinning up at the mirror with a smile almost akin to the time when they'd defeated Izanami. It had taken her six years to get here, to become a detective. And she was very proud of herself.

The badge gleamed, reflecting the dim light of her flat. And Chie's smile faded.

It'd been six years since she'd seen her friends, too.


	98. Snow

Drabble 98: Snow

The snow sprinkled lightly outside of the barred window, and Adachi was reminded of the woman in white, whom he'd betrayed with the words of his letter. He'd been in this prison for six years, his hair beginning to actually gray from the stress of this place filled with screaming roommates.

And yet, he didn't want to leave. He was to finish his sentence, and live by the rules of this world.

Sighing, he banged the back of his head lightly against the wall by his bed. They hadn't offered him the luxury of a television. And Adachi suspected it was because Dojima had pulled strings.

Often, Adachi wishes he were like the snow; forgotten in the midst of chaos.


	99. School

Drabble 99: School

In Inaba, the teenage Nanako Dojima looked up at the snow, shifting her backpack as it bit at her exposed cheeks. She'd forgotten how beautiful the snow really was. It was beautiful like flying seraphims, like marble statues floating precariously in the guise of a beautiful storybook heaven.

Nanako shivered, though not because of the cold.


	100. End

Drabble 100: End

"We'll miss you." They had said, and the silver-haired boy only nodded.

"I'll miss you, too." He'd said back to them, before climbing onto the train.

It had been the end for them. A perfect end to a year filled with mysteries, deceit, and darkness.

And it was a year none of them ever forgot.

-The End-

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**Thanks for reading!**


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